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With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. We told you yesterday about the research going on at Oregon State University that shows the powerful health benefits of red raspberries, even in a single daily serving.

OSU researcher Neil Shay says their studies help indicate where the raspberries are the most beneficial …

SHAY … “Well, you know we’re using the mice to point us in the right direction. The thing that they’re most useful for is just identifying candidates for additional studies. So, if we fed the red raspberries to mice and they did nothing, then that would be a sign that, well maybe that’s not one of the foods we should test and do mock ups for further human studies.”

Shay says that would have stalled further raspberry studies …

SHAY … “But, that’s certainly not the case here. The red raspberries showed a potent effect. That first study we did was at the equivalent of four servings a day, about 15 or 20 percent of their total calories. And then, we got such a positive result we backed off and we did another diet with the equivalent of one serving per day and still got a pretty potent effect.”

Shay says the raspberry-fed mice were visibly slimmer than their counterparts that ate the same high-fat diet WITHOUT the raspberries …

SHAY … “There’s a lot of times during the year when you can’t get fresh red raspberries, but they freeze great. And you can open up a bag and pull some out, shake them out on your cereal or on a desert or whatever and put the rest back in the freezer.”